Continuing education in radiation protection

In addition to having the necessary basic training in radiation protection, people who have dealings with or who may be exposed to ionising radiation must do continuing education in radiation protection at least every five years. Here you will find the precise requirements.

After you have completed basic training in radiation protection you are required to do compulsory continuing training at least every 5 years. This continuing training is designed to enable you to refresh and update your radiation protection know-how.

Continuing trainings must be organised so that they cover topics as relevant to professional practice as possible on the basis of practical examples. They must cover at least two of the three following areas:

Recap of content covered in basic radiation protection training
Update on radiation protection know-how on the basis of the latest developments
Implementing insights from practice or measures following events and incidents

In addition to purpose-designed courses offered by training institutions, internal events, for example those involving a medical physicist, or conferences and seminars with relevant coverage of radiation protection, also count as advanced training.

Some examples of possible forms of continuing training:

Online e-learning, tutorials and videos
In-house continuing training
Practical continuing trainings
Course in radiation protection school
Conference/seminar covering radiation protection
Continuing training within expert association

Accredited/non-accredited continuing trainings

For the purposes of the continuing training requirement a distinction is drawn between a continuing training accredited by the accreditation authority and non-accredited continuing training. Occupational groups exposed to elevated hazard potential are required to do continuing training accredited by the accreditation authority.

The following table shows which occupational groups must attend continuing training:

Occupational group	Continued training every 5 years	Accredited
Nuclear medicine professionals	8 UI*	no
Nuclear medicine professionals with radiation protection expert function (RPE)	8 UI	yes
Radiology specialist with HF diploma working in radiology or radio-oncology	8 UI	no
Radiology specialist with HF diploma working in nuclear medicine (non-RPE)	16 UI	no
Radiology specialist with HF diplome working in nuclear medicine (RPE)	16 UI	yes
Medical physicists	8 UI	yes
Radiopharmacists (RPE)	16 UI	yes

*45-minute units of instruction

The permitted tasks may only be performed if the necessary basic and continued training qualifications can be demonstrated. The licence holder is responsible for drawing up an internal policy (describing how basic and continued training for staff is taken and examined).

A list of institutes providing accredited continued training is available in German (PDF, 172 kB, 13.05.2020), French (PDF, 172 kB, 13.05.2020) and Italian (PDF, 172 kB, 13.05.2020).